127 HOURS

title: 127 HOURS
year: 2010
cast: James Franco
rating: ***1/2

A cross between ALIVE (a young man surviving nature) and THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT (he films himself), James Franco plays mountain climber Aron Ralston, who solos on a hiking trip in the Utah Mountains: documenting it with a small video camera. On the way to his destination, he runs into two beautiful girls – the last of humanity he’ll see for a few harrowing days in which, after venturing off alone, he falls down a crevice: a boulder wedging him inside with no chance of escape. Director Danny Boyle shows dreamlike flashes of Ralston's childhood mixed with delusional fantasies, all working to bridge the long 127 hours until the inevitable, gruesomely desperate task to survive: occurring in less than a minute. Although there are a bit too many flashbacks, taking away from the extremity of the situation, it all works as a mind-trip outdoor odyssey: proving a creative director, and a talented actor, can keep a story interesting in an extremely limited location.